The present invention relates to an apparatus and methods for transferring money or monetary value. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system for managing data and communications to specify, fund and execute multiple money transfers for a customer.
It is increasingly common for funds to be transferred electronically. This can occur from individual to individual or from business to business or between an individual and a business. The transfers may occur within one country or across borders, from one country into another, and thus may involve a currency change.
For individuals, such transfers are often handled as one-time transactions funded with cash. In many cases this is because the individual sending the funds lacks an account at a bank or a credit card. Thus, the funds for each transfer must be provided in cash (or equivalent), paid separately before each transaction.
This one-at-a-time, cash approach is not efficient for either the sending individual or for the bank or non-bank financial institutions involved in money transfers. One answer is for the individual to develop a banking relationship and get an account for writing checks or using home banking to make payments. However, the sender's individual situation does not always permit this. Moreover, checks and home banking forms of payment may not work well when the payment recipient is an individual without an account and when a currency change is involved. Non-bank financial institutions have well-developed solutions for doing money transfers across borders, where a currency change is involved and also for delivering payments in cash or other useful forms to a recipient. However, these systems were developed primarily for single, separate transactions funded and executed one at a time.
Moreover, the systems within the institution may use separate data processing platforms that have evolved around the particular requirements of certain agent groups or types of transactions and associated risks. The result is that some transactions or particular varieties of such transactions, e.g., forms of delivery of payout, are not available from all platforms.
Thus, there is a need for improved money transfer systems and methods that assist an “unbanked” sender (customer) in making money transfers and to provide a non-bank financial institution with procedures that minimize the amount of customer and personnel time per transaction and that are otherwise economically efficient.